Thoughts on Fantasy, Celts, and Storytelling

[capri0mni]

I just finished posting this to a Screnzy forum, in response to a comment (paraphrase follows) that if you want to come up with a good fantasy name, go Irish, or Scottish:

One reason why I think Celtic names sound like fantasy to us is that many of the motifs and worldviews in the fantasy of our contemporary culture have roots in the Celtic (Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Brittany [France] and Basqe [Spain]) storytelling traditions.

Every culture has its unique strengths. Ancient Rome excelled at the military and urban engineering. Ancient Greece is famed for its philosophers. Ancient Egypt excelled in its culture of the dead. The Ancient Hebrews excelled at religious scholarship. And the Celts excelled (and still excel) at the art of storytelling.

There's an Irish proverb that I really like:

Whoever brings one story to you
Will take two stories from you.

There's one interpretation that says this means that for every story someone tells, you're expected to tell two stories in return, to be polite, because the Irish have a two-for-one standard of politeness. But my own interpretation is a little bit different:

A guest comes down the road from a distant city, and in return for your hospitality, tells you an entertaining story about where he's been (Travelers have tales to tell.-- another proverb).

When he leaves in the morning, he still has the interesting story he came with and he has a new story -- all about you -- so you better be on your best behavior when you invite a guest into your house!

Which could be why it's considered good luck to give two-for-one, especially with storytelling. If you're stingy with a baker, or a plumber, or a bricklayer, a few people will think badly of you. If you stiff a storyteller, then you become the villian in a hundred stories that get passed on forever...

No wonder the Celts have so many stories -- they invented the "plot bunny"!

---

I need to make a plot bunny icon...

Comments

[scarfman]

This bunny already looks like he's hatching plots.

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

Heh. He does, doesn't he? But I think a "Plot Bunny" is different than a "Plotting Bunny."

I made the icon specifically for an lj comm I joined (forget the name, something about non-fluffly Pagans), but there was a probationary period before the moderators would give you full posting priveladges (you could reply, but not originate posts, or something). And it quickly became apparent that the mods were mean-spirited to newbies, and anyone they disagreed with.

So I quit the comm. But I was too fond of my bunny to let him go (a friend once described me as a White Light Pagan, but not a "fluffy" white light pagan) ... And I was born in the Chinese year of the rabbit, so...

[jekesta]

That's certainly how I've always read that proberb, yes. After all it says they'll 'take' two stories, not 'expect' them.

::dances you::

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

Oooh, you know this proverb? I only came across it on a learn-Irish-Gaelic website a couple of years ago. We have nothing like it, in the States (though if we did, maybe we wouldn't make such ugly tourists around the world, generally speaking).

Anyway, I like this proverb so much, I wrote a song about it, a couple of years ago. I posted it here (http://capriuni.livejournal.com/140481.html), but nobody replied to it. I don't remember if there was another hoopla on LJ at that time, or not...

Anyway, yes. :::Points to her new Icon::: What that says... (for good or ill).

[jekesta]

Oh, I hadn't read that before, it's really lovely!:) I didn't listen to the music, I have to admit, but it scanned well and I'm sure you did the tune greatly also:)

I think I know ti from some short story or other, we had a lot of those story books based on various proverbs and whatnot when I was little:)

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

Hm. That was a couple of years ago... maybe you weren't on my f'list yet.

Anyway, glad you like it! Anapestic Tetrameter FTW!

(Though I have to find a way to make it a Woman storyteller, and still scans, so that, if I'm ever invited someone and get asked for a song or a story, it'll work when I sing it...)

Was the story, by any chance, "The Man who had no Stories?" That's one of my favorites...

[jekesta]

Ah, I hadn't thought about the gender thing, yes, that would make more sense:)

I wouldn't know the title of it, I'm not good at titles at the best of times, sorry:)

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

"The Man who had no stories" is about a man who is traveling down the road, and stops as a guest at the house of an old couple. In return for the food and a place to sleep, the old couple ask for a song.

"But I can't sing," says the man.

"Then tell us a story."

"I don't have any stories."

"Well, then, at least make yourself useful, and fill this bucket at the well, so I can cook dinner."

So the man agrees that he can do that, at least. And then, while he's waiting for the sides of the bucket to dry a bit, so he doesn't track water into the house, a great wind comes along and blows him into the sky.

And then he lands in the world of The People of Peace, and a whole bunch of stuff happens that makes a Monty Python skit look normal, by comparison (lots of different versions, with different stuff -- all weird). And another wind picks him up, and drops him back at the old couple's house, and the bucket is just barely dry.

And when he walks through the door, the old woman asks: "So -- now do you have a story?"

And he says: "Boy, Do I!" and tells them all the weird stuff.

And it's such a great story that he never has to do another lick of manual labor again, because everyone is willing to feed him, just to hear it, and, of course, every time he goes somewhere and tells that story, people in the audience share their stories... so he goes from having none to having lots and lots...

The unspoken moral of the story is that: "The only people who have no stories to tell are the ones who aren't paying attention to their everyday lives."